Scariest automotive mishap you've had?

[CManT1914]

Tell me what the scariest thing that has happened to you while working on your car, stang or any other. It could be anything from the car falling off jackstands (this seems to happen more often than I would expect), or breaking off bolts, or whatever.

ME: When my buddy and I were replacing the head gaskets on the stang a month or so ago, we were putting everything back together, and he pulled the two nuts that hold the heater hoses down out of a baggie. Well, one dropped right into the dizzy hole that we had just uncovered. :damnit: That was some scary stuff! I was afraid we were about to have to pull the motor. Fortunately, he was able to fish around down there with a magnetic rod, and he hooked it and pulled it out. I was doing something else, and I hear him say, "well looky there". lol, I was quite relieved.

 

[95Vert]

I remember the first time I took my upper intake off,(stock) and when I go back to put it back on, I caught the throttle cable in between there and broke off one of the ears while tightening down the intake. Good thing it was my stock one and the Cobra was on it's way.

 

[Swarzkopf]

Do accidents count? If so, the scariest incident was spinning my 99 GT at 90mph...

Working on cars, the scariest experience was this:

Buddy just bought a new car. It was his first performance car. He knew NOTHING about cars and asked me to show him how to change the oil.

We put the car up on ramps and I showed him how to removed the drain plug with a ratchet. In the process, he spilled oil all over the driveway.

Next, I instructed him to get back under the car and remove the filter. He said he didn't want to, because he didn't want to get oil all over himself. He said he was going to move the car so he had a clean area to work.

I told him he couldn't do that....he asked why, and I guess the idea seemed so foreign to me that I just stared blankly. He got into the car, fired it up, and started pulling off the ramps when it hit me.

I starting screaming "KILL IT! OFF NOW! KILL IT!". He turned it off immediately and was paniced at seeing me freak and had no idea why I was losing it.

Luckily, enough oil had remained in the filter that the car was a-okay.

 

[Nik_95Cobra]

Sacariest thing while working on a car...I was doing a customers car @ our shop a couple months ago, it was on our lift. Anyway I was under it and the lift suddenly dropped about a foot. Scared the bajesus out of me, luckily it had stops, then we got it fixed. And another time when I was about 16-17 I was jacking up a car witha scizzors jack and it tiped over and the car and tire came down on my foot.

 

[Killercanary]

Like a dummie I forgot to disconnect the battery one when I had my old '91 up on ramps and happened to mistakenly have a wrench make contact with the starter cilynoid(sp) and the car started moving forward since it was in gear... that was SCAREY as it damn near went right off the ramps. I never thought it'd do that, but I'll never make that mistake again.

 

[VibrantRedGT]

When I worked at a Chevy dealership many moons ago the Corvette ZR1 had come out. I did a tune up on a teal one and took it out for a test drive. My buddy caught me on my test drive as he was doing the same thing with a black one (his a driveability issue) we caught a stop light so we lined them up. Long story short, he slammed into the back of a car at like 70MPH. The Vette exploded on impact.

A few days later I was pulling an IROC into my bay and I scraped the wall (I had an end stall) and in my haste I forgot to bring my lift all the way down. So not only did I trash the bumper but I broke just about everything under the car from the lift. Wasn't a good week for me. I was young and stupid then.

 

[CManT1914]

Holy crap Joe!! You trashed their Corvette on a test drive and you still had a job?!?! lol

 

[VibrantRedGT]

No I trashed the IROC my buddy in the next stall trashed the Vette. These were customer cars too. The owner of the Vette got a new one of course and the IROC had to be repaired and that dude wasn't a happy camper obviously. I think we got in on trade a few days later.

These are only a few tales. I could go on and on. We serviced a Hurst one day. We took it out for a test drive. I got in the back of it. We rolled up on school bus with kids hanging out the windows. I pulled the shade and slid the window back and started screaming "I'm alive!!, I'm alive!!, don't let them bury me!!! Help!!! Those kids were freaked. They were screaming back at my buddy and passenger that "
the guy back there is alive." They had straight faces about it "His soul is alive your right." I wish I had a camera for that one.

 

[CManT1914]

OH OK!! I read it again, I thought you said he slammed in the back of you. What happened to your buddy?

LMAO about the school bus kids.

 

[VibrantRedGT]

My buddy was fired after he healed up.

We use to prank each other pretty badly. My first automatic tranny service was interesting. I was an apprentice and my mentor told me to unbolt the pan an rip it down. Well I did just that. When I pulled it down I got 6 quarts of tranny fluid in the face. The entire shop was behind the tool boxes laughing. You unbolt all the bolts but the last one then you pry just a section of the pan on an angle to drain. I had fluid from my forehead to my toes. They took pictues and posted them in the break room.

 

[CManT1914]

ROFLMAO!! That's pretty funny Jow. A similar thing happened to me doing my head gaskets last month. I drained as much coolant as I could out of the petcock on the radiator, but I forgot that there would still be some in the lower hose. I went to pull it off and got a facefull of antifreeze, lol. What made it funnier was, when my buddy Mike and me did the heads/cam originally, he pulled the lower hose off, and took a coolant bath. I had forgotten about it, and did the same thing. Needless to say, he was laughing pretty hard at me.

 

[bimmertech]

my scariest(also dumbest) was when i was in the air force. i was seriously hung over on a saturday and i had to do a basic postflight, which consists of many things including walking out on the wing to bounce the struts so they settle after refueling. while bouncing the struts the plane settled and bounced me off the wing, i fell about 10ft onto the flightline. i thought i had broken my elbow, but just minor cuts and a big ol bruise. my buddy was on the next jet over and said i looked like a sack of potatoes.

 

[95Vert]

LMAO, Holy crap Joe, that's some funny chit. Sounds like it was freaking fun tho.

 

[yellowstang1994]

I just got the tranny back in the stang and I was trying to wrap everything up and test it out at like 2AM. I'm really really tired and just trying to get the damn thing done. So I run and let down the front of the car off the jackstands. I then go over to the back and start jacking it up, mind you I have one of those lightweight aluminum jacks and my driveway leading into my garage is on a slope. So as soon as the car lifts off the jackstands in the rear I hear the jackstands kick out from underneath the car and the son of a bitch starts rolling back, very very fast!!! Like it was barely on the jackpad, it was almost off it and I was halfway underneath it propping up my leg underneath the car to keep it from falling off and holding my body on the corner of the garage. I was screaming for my life, because I seriously thought I was gonna die. My dad quickly ran out and helped me and got jackstands underneath. Yea yea, I know what your thinking... what a ****in dumbass... but when your this tired sometimes your not thinking.

 

[donjohn]

nice bimmertech and that's some pretty funny chit joe

edit: just read that last one, jeez man... some scary stuff. i haven't really thought about that, but how would you jack up the back of the car on a slight decline? or you just do one wheel at a time?

 

[deadlast]

i tried moving the car when it was not on, i just had to roll it down the driveway. well my driveway is very steep and turney, so i dropit into neatral and start to roll. so im going maybe 6-7 mph, and then try to trun to avoid my moms car that is parked. the wheel locks! i try slamming on the brakes but they didnt work cuz the car wasnt on. i stopped nearly 2-3 mm away from her front bumper. scary ****in ****.

 

[illwood]

One near miss story and scare the crap out of me story.

First, the near miss. I bought a used Fisher power angle plow for my Bronco and borrowed my dad's pickup to get it. When I got home dad gave me a hand getting the headgear of the plow out (the part that bolts to the pushplates and has the lights, the big hydraulic pump and the lift piston). I was walking backward with it when I wrenched my ankle in a rut in the lawn. My knee buckled and I dropped. Dad quickly pulled at the end of the headgear that he was holding and was able to get it to miss shattering my kneecap by about 1/2"

The scare the crap out of me was when I was putting some airbags in the front end of the same Bronco (to help when the weight of the plow was on it). I had a tire off and I was under the front of the truck on a creeper. For whatever reason, the tire that was leaning on the wall fell over and landed on the open screwdriver drawer of my toolbox that was next to it. I'm on my back under the truck and hear the crash. I immediately shot out from under the truck (thinking it was falling of the jackstands) to discover the downed tire and mangled toolbox drawer.

I can't top Joe's stories, but I figured I post 'em anyway.

 

[bubba-dough]

The scariest has got to be anytime I am helping my pal work on his car. He doesn't believe in jack stands. Its always an argument because I will not begin to get under a car without them.

 

[Crash Gordon]

The scarries thing that ever happened to me ??

Oh, I was fabricating a liquid to air intercooler for an acura TL that I supercharged. I had to take the fuel lines off, to get to a few things and then had to pull the car forward, so I put the key in and turned it forward enough to unlock the steering wheel, Well on the TL that point is exactly the same point that the fuel pump turns on. Well needless to say fuel sprayed out of the open fuel line. And somehow, it ignited. The next thing I know I have my shirt off, and am under the hood trying to put the fire out. Finally someone came running with a fire exstuingisher. Th flames had to be about 20 feet High.

I ended up having to buy a new wiring harness, and cleaning everything up. The owner wasnt soo mad though as I was fabricating things up using his car, and basically he got everything for free.

Figured out how the battery got re connected. I had disconnected the battery, but the cables were really short, and I bent them out of the way and hooked them on the corner of the battery hold down. It was only by chance that they came unhooked and swung back and were just touching the battery, and I never knew.

Yea, It scared the shiot out of me. I was shaking for like 3 hours, had no shirt (it was all burnt full of holes) and I had 3rd degree burns on both hands.

 

[1994Vib.RedGT]

wrecks: rolling my old car over into a ditch at 45 mph.

working: when putting on my x-pipe, and using the floor jack to put the jackstands under it, i twisted my floor jack handle the wrong way, and the whole left rear corner of the car fell and left it resting on the fronts.